Classic Ride and Water park

What role do you see the classic ride and water park combo parks playing in the amusement industry over the next 10 years?

From Michael

Dear Michael,

As our industry matured and we saw the build out of greenfield theme parks in the USA, we began experiencing the development of stand-alone water parks.  Why?  Water parks were and remain much more economical to build than a large theme park, and serve a closer-in market – typically within a range of 25 miles.  Water parks also consume far less land than theme parks, ranging from as few as 20 acres to 50 for a large free-standing water park.

Water parks, when first introduced and which were associated with existing theme parks, were developed as second gates contiguous to parks.  After 30 years of building stand-alone water parks, theme parks that did not initially develop second-gated water parks later decided to intrinsically develop parks, adding them to their product lineup.  Operators learned that they could create a valuable attraction inside their parks, adding significant value to their guests’ visits, while at the same time increasing their admissions fees.  This allowed parks to present a new major attraction that gave great pleasure to their annual visitors and kept them inside the theme park boundaries, thus creating a larger per capita spend.

Parks understood that people like water, they want to be around it, and they want to be in it.  Adding a water park internally has become the norm for theme parks who develop water attractions.

In many markets / parks, the addition of the water park has become the “local country club” for many surrounding communities.  Here at Kings Island in Cincinnati, Ohio, there are many days in the summer when “Soak City” is at capacity.  During those times, there can more than 20,000 people in the water park on a sweltering summer day.  Some guests actually may not visit the dry park.  They will spend their entire day in the water park.

Through the years, many municipalities have developed water parks for their local populations.  We have seen hotels add them as an amenity for their guests.  We have also seen the Great Wolf Lodge, which was introduced in the Wisconsin Dells in 1997, grow to major proportions.  Now operating 13 locations in North America, they have been enormously successful in combining themed hotel stays with large indoor water parks.  Great Wolf spawned others, such as Kalahari, CocoKey, and other independent operations.  Some remain; some have closed.

Swimming in one form or another has been enjoyed since the beginning of time, and since George Millay created the first water park (Wet ‘n Wild in 1977).  It was the first stand-alone water park, located in Orlando, and brought about the surge of the water park industry.  Today, over 1,200 water parks operate in the United States, including all municipality-owned, corporate-owned, independently-owned, and water parks within hotel operations.

Michael, whether separate or together, the water park concept is here to stay, and is still proliferating around the world.  In many operations the two – wet and dry – cohabitate together, producing millions of guests each year and creating a well rounded and fun experience of single and multiple-day enjoyment.  We owe a big debt of gratitude to George Millay for conceiving the water park concept and to today’s theme park operators for blending them together.  I believe the combination concept will continue to trend well into the future.  So to answer your question, they work well together now and will continue to work well far into the future.

Thanks for reading.

Mr. Theme Park